by Lucía Jalón Oyarzun

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Despite all the time spent with him on campus, they did not see Cedric. They did not see his son. Cedric became an Invisible Man. All they saw was a walking, two-bodied Black trope. And that is exactly what George Zimmerman saw: a trope. All he experienced. Not Trayvon Martin. Not a person. Not an American or even a human being, just a Black trope — a disruptive figure occupying the anxiety-ridden terrain of his White imagination. Therefore, as it has been during and since the American Enslavement, it, the Black trope, had to be domesticated. Controlled. Put in its place. And if necessary, murdered.